catfeeder

How were you able to see a therapist before? Are you in school? If so, ask for a referral from a school counselor. You are allowed to keep your reasons confidential, and if you doubt that, you can extract that agreement from the counselor prior to discussing anything you don't want to discuss. Sp your parents would know nothing beyond the fact that your counselor recommends that you see XYZ therapist. You can research the recommendation via the Internet prior to raising it with your parents to ensure that nothing specific about this therapist's specialty is public knowledge.

I hear, RR. My Mom was a well known hair stylist in town, so I grew up to the model of being fully dressed and made up before leaving the house. She didn't want to be spotted by customers looking frumpy. This impacted me in ways I didn't understand because it was all I knew. Also not helpful were her critical comments of people who were messy and "had no pride" after we'd pass them in public. This mindset was something I had to 'unlearn' over time, but I'm glad I did--to whatever degree. That's the qualifier I'll use, because I'll admit that I easily related to your reaction to the guy you met. So how we were raised has a larger impact on some of us than on others. For instance, I had to be fully dressed in my 'Sunday best,' complete with a doily-like thingus on my head for Catholic mass when I stayed with my grandparents on school vacations and summers. You wouldn't believe the holy h3LL they raised when their church introduced casual services where people could wear jeans. They would have rolled in their graves had they seen the girls at my Catholic university showing up in pajama bottoms for morning classes. Today, I'm not even a practicing Catholic, but I'd still never step foot on a church property without a decent outfit--sans the head thingie.

Yeah, and good luck with that. I think you're just having fun tinkering with strangers on the Internet.

I think these two quotes go well together, and I hope you'll indulge me. It was the 'radical' feminists in the US during the 1910's who galvanized the support of men to gain women the vote (finally!) in 1920. It's also some of the most radical US feminists today that have mobilized men in movements to equalize our pay and make important gains like 'parental leave' (rather than 'maternal' leave) to equalize our status in the workplace. I raise this because the US is so far behind most progressive countries in terms of women's equality, and we have recently and speedily regressed in terms of women's bodily autonomy and overall health care, where women are not only being forced to carry unwanted pregnancies in nearly 26 states, but a recorded 520,000 rapes were associated with 64,565 pregnancies across 14 states with abortion restrictions, the highest number being in the state of Texas, at 26,313 as of this January. (PBS - Public Broadcasting System ) Maybe whatever radicalism some men may sense from women is actually a life and death issue for women, during a time where one of childbearing years can actually be denied certain cancer treatments to avoid preemptively impacting the formation of a fetus, and lifesaving measures for consensually pregnant women bleeding out from miscarriage are being denied until the only treatment left is to remove her womb or otherwise cripple her ability to conceive again. The men who recognize the importance of standing up for women are desirable candidates for dating and mating and marriage. If any degree of feminism might prompt some men to withdraw from the dating market, I would argue the likelihood that these men are rightfully screening themselves out from the rejection they would face from the moment they first open their mouths.

Not for this issue, no. Why not? Don't you think that pursuing help from someone who is trained in this area and owns the expertise to work with you would be a more valuable use of your time than tinkering with a bunch of Internet strangers?

This is interesting. What did the text say that was rude?

I hope this either gets easier for you or works out for you. Just a note about stages of grief, these are not necessarily outward behaviors or expressions, they are largely internal. Head high, and write more if it helps.

I don’t think it’s the therapy that’s exhausting you, it’s the GF. She doesn’t want you to recognize through therapy how detrimental she is to your health.

I'd make this less about what anyone else thinks and more about how I feel, and then how BF responds when I discuss with him how I feel and my reasons for this. If he's caring, you'll likely have your questions answered. If he's dismissive, then what would that tell you?

I agree with the suggestions to seek legal advice. Learn all of your options, along with the best steps you can take for each option. Then you can make decisions based on real information rather than operating on emotions alone. I would hold off on informing the man's spouse about this. Instead, I'd inform wife that I've filed a document containing the information with my attorney in case anything should happen to me.

Of course, it sounds brusque to tell someone who's grieving to stop thinking about that person, so I wouldn't internalize that to mean that you can't ever think about him. Just not during your time with stepmum. But don't pull back on time with her or with any other friends or loved ones. Just the opposite--lean into MORE time with them. But consider trying out something that was helpful to me during a rough time. While you are healing, make the time you spend with your people about 'them-not-me'. Observe how this changes each experience. You're feeling raw and lousy, so you won't feel up to being 'on' for anyone. So let yourself off the hook energetically. Make it your only requirement that you simply show up for them. No backing out, no worries about how you look or what you'll say. Just show up. Observe yourself learning how to become the best listener you've ever been. Ask some sincere questions as they speak about themselves, their plans, their worries, their lives. Since you've been tenderized, you can tap into empathy and caring, and this can translate into helping those you care about to feel understood and loved. In turn, this time can help you to start to feel valued and loved again--and so grateful for having these people in your life. The more you reach out to book your time with others, for even the most mundane things, like taking a walk, or helping with an errand, or treating them to an ice cream, or helping them prep a meal, that's not only time you won't spend staring at your ceiling, it's time that will help you to start feeling 'normalized' and like part of a family and a community again. Make lots of commitments on your calendar that you will not break, and you will thank yourself after every one of them. You will start to feel more like the person you remember yourself to be. Head high, hang in there, and write more if it helps.

I agree. Would you want to date a guy you had to 'train' to bathe before meeting a new person? I hope you'll just block him. There's nothing to be gained by engaging beyond more exhaustion.

Yes, and some experts believe that 'breaking up' with a fantasy can be equally as difficult as losing an in-person lover, because all of your past experiences and hurts and expectations were rolled up into this fantastic fantasy--so dis-illusion-ment hits hard. Deciding that nobody else in the whole world could possibly satisfy you is sabotage that you can also decide is temporary. Of course, nobody can compete with a fantasy. That's why we have them. We get to imbue the fantasy with everything we could possibly want, and it's taken 2 years for you to grasp that this particular object of your fantasy will no longer cooperate with your story line. He's not going to get on a plane after all. So I'd invest in separating myself from this guy rather than trying to remain in touch with him, because you'll never get any wasted time back to re-live over again. But you still have the rest of your life to invest in healing and growing into new exploration. Use your Internet skills to find groups and interests local enough to participate, set up dating profiles that outline all of your interests and screen local people to set up quick meets over coffee. Move your focus onto things that you CAN do, and give yourself time for natural grief without declaring that you'll feel this way 'forever.' Instead, decide that this is temporary, and make it a goal to train yourself into thinking and believing in ways that inspire you. Head high, and write more if it helps.

Yep, understandable. This is the slippery slope. He asks, you're honest, he turns it back on you. Likely the same kind of guy who bemoans women who won't explain the 'why'. There's no win/win in that--it's a lose/lose no matter how it's sliced. This kind of hostility is exactly why I have no problem with ghosting directly after a first meet, or even prior to setting up a meet. The silence IS the explanation. While this isn't true of everyone, I've had even a message as generic as, "I don't think we're a match..." prompt a blowup of my phone, and that really shook me up. I won't position myself that way anymore. I stress the word 'quick' for a coffee meet, I clarify that this means 15 or 20 minutes. I ask him to agree that neither of us will attempt to set up a real date on the spot, but either can invite the other to a date afterward. If the answer is yes, the other responds, but if the answer is no, then no response is necessary. This is important to me, because I don't want to feel cornered into accepting a date, only to feel obligated to cancel it later. People are tricky with rejection. I've had disastrous breakups when I was younger, where I was stalked and harassed. I was once actually held captive until I took back the breakup. So if I don't like a guy enough to date him, then I certainly don't trust that he will handle rejection like a reasonable human being. Unfortunately.

Who, exactly, would you be fighting? Her?